SCHOOL SAFETY IS FACING NEW CHALLENGES

In the wake of last week's fatal rampage by two students in Littleton, Colo., school and suburban officials in the Chicago area are taking actions-- from organizing community forums to hiring more police officers--to try to prevent similar incidents in their towns.

The Colorado incident already has led to enhanced security or reviews of existing safety measures at schools in Barrington, Lincolnshire and Wheeling. Hoffman Estates Mayor Michael O'Malley has taken the first steps toward creating a crisis-response team in his suburb.

The challenge that local officials face in rebuilding community confidence in school safety was made clear Wednesday:

- In Oak Lawn, police charged a 15-year-old Burbank boy with assault and disorderly conduct after he allegedly announced plans to bomb his private school and kill the principal and a student. Police said they searched the boy's home and found two 12-gauge shotguns, a .22-caliber rifle and assorted knives in his bedroom and 150 rounds of ammunition elsewhere in the house.

- At Benjamin Middle School in West Chicago, administrators canceled classes and sent students home after a bomb threat was left on an administrator's voice mail. DuPage County sheriff's police searched the building and found no evidence of any explosive device. The school is expected to reopen Thursday.

- And at Barrington High School, unfounded but persistent rumors of a student attack similar to the one in Colorado prompted about 20 percent of the 2,300 students to stay home, administrators said.

- In DeKalb, police Wednesday arrested a 17-year-old male after he threw a CO2 cartridge under a car parked in the DeKalb High School parking lot. The cartridge exploded but no one was injured, according to police. Police declined to identify the suspect who was charged with arson.

The Colorado killings have prompted changes at Barrington High and other District 220 schools. Officials have hired a second police liaison officer to work with teens in the high school, and they have formed a community task force aimed at preventing student violence.

The task force is designed to open discussions among students, teachers and administrators--as well as local police and residents--about school security.

"We'd like to create a broad-based group," District 220 spokeswoman Debbie Villers said.

Officials at Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire also have created a school-safety task force of students, parents, administrators and security experts.

"The huge challenge we face is this tremendous pressure for schools to become fortified, making them safer," said Stevenson High School District 125 Supt. Richard P. DuFour. "But a lot of the ideas being considered would adversely affect the quality of life at school."

Wheeling High School officials have set up a telephone hot line for students to report anonymously tips about suspicious activity by their peers. And Wheeling police plan to use a $125,000 federal grant to hire a second officer to patrol the village's two middle schools.

In Hoffman Estates, O'Malley wants to form a community crisis-response team that would include officials from the Police Department, area schools and hospitals, the Cook County sheriff's police and the Cook County state's attorney's office.

The mayor said that the team would address any incidents of violence at schools, as well as natural disasters or fires.

In the 11 years since Laurie Dann walked into a 2nd-grade classroom in Winnetka and fatally shot one student and wounded five others, school officials have installed surveillance cameras, locked school doors and hired guards to keep dangerous strangers at bay.

But following the yearlong rash of school shootings nationwide, local officials acknowledge that methods aimed at outsiders usually do nothing to prevent violence by students.

"Before Laurie Dann, anyone could walk in and out of schools," District 220's Villers said. "After the Dann incident, every school had emergency procedures in place. But the Colorado shooting changed all the rules."

For every potential solution, school officials see drawbacks.

"I assume that some of the security measures are things that kids could get used to," said DuFour. "But what if we start eliminating backpacks because there could be a bomb inside, or prohibiting gym bags because they could carry a gun? We would be basing all of our policies and procedures on the lowest common denominator--one deranged kid."